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Trai To Go After Fiber Enhancement To Aid 5G Rollout

The government aims to increase fibre footprint to fivefold by 2022, from the current 1.5 million route kilometers.

The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is readying to consult industry stakeholders on enhancing the country’s fibre footprint on the backdrop of Narendra Modi government’s ambitious fifth generation or 5G technology push.

Trai secretary Sunil K Gupta told Economic Times that they are preparing a consultation paper on how to enhance fiberisation to help implementation of 5G in the country.

Gupta added that the regulator would be taking an initial step that includes setting up an agenda for the broader consultation, and that would include current footprint status, existing bottlenecks, and ways and means to increase fiber penetration.

India’s fibre penetration, according to industry estimates is extremely low, and despite 5G technology around the corner, only 25 per cent of the 5 lakh telecom towers in India are fiberised— an essential backhaul requirement for high-speed data network deployments.

Going forward
The government, as a part of the recently-unveiled national policy, also aims to establish the National Fibre Authority (NFA) but, however, the department of telecom (DoT) is yet to take further steps.

The government aims to increase fibre footprint to fivefold by 2022, from the current 1.5 million route kilometers.

Trai is expected to come out with a new paper on fiberisation in the next quarter.
With immense data demand and 5G which is expected to arrive by 2020, the need for fiberisation in India has increased manifold. Telecom service providers are now also turning to local cable operators.